


The Advantages of Corporeal Form

by skepwith



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Crisis of Faith, Demisexual Aziraphale, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Ineffable Husbands through the ages, M/M, Mind Meld, Shmoop, alternating pov, care and feeding of your human body, service top Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-25 21:01:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21362620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skepwith/pseuds/skepwith
Summary: It wasn’t until more humans came along that he thought to petition Upstairs for a human body. Adam and Eve had been used to his angelic form, having made his acquaintance in their earliest days, but later generations of humans had a tendency to scream, or fall on their knees, or ask awkward questions like “Oh my God, why does it have so many eyes?,” and it made Aziraphale uncomfortable.He was issued one (1) human body and told he was responsible for maintaining it in good working order. It had pale skin and pink lips and whitish hair, particularly on the head, chest, underarms, and around the absurd-looking genitals. Like all human bodies, it was strange and beautiful and grotesque.Human bodies are weird, but they have their advantages.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 239





	The Advantages of Corporeal Form

**Author's Note:**

> This was written based on the “two cakes” philosophy of fanfic. There’s a whole lot of amazing GO fic out there, y’all, and I’ve been eating it up. So thanks.

Aziraphale had grown rather fond of his earthly shell over the past six millennia or so. He was so used to it now that when he remembered his earliest days in the Garden, he pictured himself not as a celestial entity but instead in his current comfortable form (sometimes with and sometimes without wings). In the same way, he remembered Crowley (then Crawly) with long limbs and red hair rather than as a large snake (or at least a snake-shaped being, since real snakes couldn’t talk, or think, or plan effective temptations of any kind).

But in fact it hadn’t been until more humans came along that he’d thought to petition Upstairs for a human body. Adam and Eve had been used to his angelic form, having made his acquaintance in their earliest days, but later generations of humans had a tendency to scream, or fall on their knees, or ask awkward questions like “Oh my God, why does it have so many eyes?,” and it made Aziraphale uncomfortable.

“Did you try saying ‘Be Not Afraid’?” asked Gabriel, reviewing Aziraphale’s request in his holy office with a corner window. “That’s what I do.”

“Yes, well, I was thinking perhaps a subtler approach. Less terrifying, more…friendly.” 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” said the archangel, frowning. “What if they just ignore you?”

“Oh, I’ve found a great deal can be accomplished with a simple chat.” Aziraphale beamed.

He was issued one (1) human body and told he was responsible for maintaining it in good working order. It had pale skin and pink lips and whitish hair, particularly on the head, chest, underarms, and around the absurd-looking genitals. Like all human bodies, it was strange and beautiful and grotesque.

He was, by then, very familiar with the human form in all its variations, but observation had not prepared him for the sheer amount of sensation. His skin—even his hair!—was alive to the least contact, and his mouth—good Lord! It took him ages to stop noticing his tongue all the time, what with the constant signals it insisted on sending to his brain. Then there was breathing, which was rather nice, and usually brought along smelling, which could be either lovely or quite disgusting, depending on what was in his environs. He tried eating—fruit at first, because he remembered it from the Garden—and found it very pleasant indeed, though its natural outcome the following morning was less so.

As an angel he was eternal, but his human body was in a constant state of flux. The hair on his head and face grew, as did his fingernails and toenails, until he decided it was much more convenient to keep everything short. (Later, he would allow his hair to grow simply for the pleasure of visiting the barber.) He aged, inside and out, a fascinating process. Of course, a minor exertion of angelic will could reverse that in a moment, just as it could heal his injuries, or indeed change his body in any way he deemed necessary. But after a few centuries, he found he had settled into a form he maintained more or less consistently.

Some of his bodily choices were based on how humans reacted to him. Having a form like Eve’s (“female”) was pleasantly grounding, but he got funny looks when he went to taverns or restaurants on his own (not to mention some rather distressing propositions), so he settled into something people saw as “male.” He also settled on an age somewhere in the middle of life—old enough to be taken seriously, but young enough not to be handed unwanted leadership responsibilities.

He tried sleeping and didn’t care for it; he chose to renew his earthly cells using his angelic will instead. Eating, on the other hand, was marvellous. His love of food made his form softer and rounder, and this pleased him—it was a visible effect of his interaction with the world. He sometimes thought it was his most human quality.

To his surprise, Crawly also got himself a body (though maybe it wasn’t so surprising, since a snake’s capacity to influence human events was somewhat limited). His was quite different from Aziraphale’s: though equally pale, it was tall and thin and its hair was an unlikely bright red. A bit flashy, Aziraphale thought, until he remembered his own hair colour was almost as uncommon. Despite the demon’s new form, Aziraphale recognized him at once. The snake eyes were a bit of a giveaway, and who else would greet him with “Hello, angel! How’s tricks?”

“Crawly?” he said. “How nice to see you! That is—what are you doing here?”

“Oh, just stopped by for a quick temptation. Don’t worry, I won’t get in your way. I only wanted to let you know I was in the area. Sort of a courtesy.”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Aziraphale, pleased at this evidence of civility. “Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it.”

Not until after Crawly had left did it occur to Aziraphale that he ought to have tried to thwart the demon in some way. Perhaps subtly question him about his Hellish mission so Aziraphale could plan some cunning counter-moves. He couldn’t help but feel Upstairs would not have approved of the chummy tone of their conversation. But it was just like the first time, in the Garden, when he’d felt such relief in sharing his worries with someone, even if they _were_ a demon.

He’d been aware, as they stood side by side on the Garden wall, of their antithetical natures. There was a sort of _evil_, for want of a better word, pouring off the demon, just as he himself emitted a steady glow of goodness. The very air between them seemed confused, as if poised between two different gravities and unable to decide which way to fall. When the first rain began, Crawly ducked his head and shuffled sideways, evidently fearing some sort of divine retribution. Without thinking, Aziraphale stretched out a sheltering wing; he had no fear of God’s blessings. For hours the rain pattered on his feathers (or, more accurately, the feather-shaped surface of his being), while he carefully kept his wing from touching the top of the demon’s essence. He wasn’t sure what would appear if he closed that millimetre's gap—whether a static shock or a supernova—but he knew better than to take the risk.

Seeing Crawly a second time evoked in him a feeling of, not sympathy, but a cautious camaraderie. After all, Crawly was the only other eternal being posted indefinitely to Earth. Humans could be delightful—indeed he loved them, as a group—but they were here and gone in less than a century, and their concerns were often petty. They could hardly help it, poor dears, when their lives were so short.

So though he fretted about the propriety of his interaction with the demon, he didn’t include it in his next report home—any more than he’d mentioned their first meeting—soothing his guilty conscience with a wonderful sort of pastry he’d just discovered made with honey, nuts, and rosewater. And when in a decade or so Crawly popped up again to say hello and by the way had Aziraphale heard of this thing called wine?, Aziraphale found himself inviting the demon to stay for a bit. A little conversation couldn’t hurt, he reasoned, as long as he kept his wits about him and didn’t fall for any wiles.

They settled on a bench beneath a palm tree, on the shady side of the village square, and Crawly produced a gourd and two clay cups.

“Wine?” said Aziraphale, giving his cup a discreet sniff. “Oh, yes, I’ve tried this. I’m afraid I don’t really care for the taste.”

“Ah, but it’s not just about the taste, is it? You’ve got to give it a chance.”

They gave it a chance, and then another, and by the time the shadows were well across the square, they had become, if not friends—that was out of the question—at least colleagues.

“I’s not s’bad, is it? Being down here,” said Aziraphale, staring up at the deepening blue of the sky and feeling a sense of well-being expand in his chest.

“Noooo,” agreed Crawly solemnly, shaking his head so that his ridiculously pretty ringlets swayed back and forth.

“There’s lots of nice things, and some really quite wond’ful food. I say, have you tried the—the honey things? The whatnots with the nuts and rosewawater?”

“Mmn,” said Crawly, refilling his cup.

“Oh, but you must! They’re scrummus. Scrumpshus!”

“Food’s all right, I s’pose. But you know what humans’ve really got a knack for?”

“What?”

“Music!”

The angel’s face collapsed in doubt. “Oh, do you really think so?” he said, because he was too polite to say _Nonsense!_ “I mean, it’s hardly celestial harmonies.”

“Ha!” said Crawly, sitting up straight (well, straight-ish) and pointing a finger in Aziraphale’s general direction. “At least you can dance to it! It’s _fun!_ Celestial harmonies, my arse,” he muttered.

Aziraphale pretended not to hear that last bit. “Do you? _Dance?_”

“Course! I love a dance party, me.”

“Goodness.” The angel looked away, scandalized. Dancing wasn’t strictly verboten Upstairs, but they tended to look down on it as frivolous and undignified. What purpose was there, after all, in all that jumping up and down? Aziraphale pondered this as he carefully poured himself another cup. It brought another unwelcome thought, one that was never far from his mind. “D’you think we’ll get in trouble?”

“Eh? For what?”

“This,” said Aziraphale, gesturing back and forth between them. He lowered his voice: “_Fraternizing_.”

Crawly blinked his yellow eyes. “How’re they to know?”

“They _observe_,” whispered Aziraphale, twisting his neck to look all around them, as if he might spot Michael hiding behind a date tree.

“Mm, so do they,” said Crawly, pointing downward. “But your lot have never seen me—not looking like this, anyway—and my lot have never seen you all…” He gestured up and down to indicate the angel’s current body. “So there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale sagged with relief—for about a minute. “But what if they found out? What do you think they would do to us?”

The demon shrugged. “Discorporation? Torture? Team-building improv?”

“Oh, dear. Perhaps we should be more careful.”

“Don’t worry about it, angel. Nobody cares.”

The next morning Aziraphale’s general goodwill towards his counterpart was a little shaken when the sun thrust itself through his window and hit his face at a particularly piercing angle, and he was gifted with his first experience of a hangover. He suspected Crawly of a demonic wile at first, but the discomfort receded after a few hours, and he decided the demon’s motives had been—well, not pure, obviously, but no more evil than was to be expected.

He had just mentally filed away the previous night as a not-unpleasant interlude, when a letter arrived from Upstairs. It wasn’t, of course, a letter as we know it, but a tablet inscribed in the local script, delivered by an enviably ignorant human messenger. Loosely translated, it said,

_Aziraphale,_

_It has come to our attention that an emissary of the Adversary is currently operating in your area. Do not engage directly, but use any means necessary to thwart their evil deeds. Keep your eyes open—all of them._

Deus vult,

_Michael  
(Archangel)_

The tablet fell through Aziraphale’s numb fingers and landed on the floor with a thud. He’d already disobeyed a direct order, without even meaning to! He would have to stay well away from Crawly from now on.

***

Despite what you might think, Hell doesn’t like questions any better than Heaven does. The difference is that asking questions in Hell doesn’t risk destabilizing the universe, and instead of being given the eternal boot, the response was usually an exasperated “Piss off, Crowley!”

The denizens of Hell mostly found Crowley annoying. Either he took things too seriously (like the precise composition of galaxy NGC 1706, or Mary Shelley’s vacation plans) or he didn’t take them seriously enough (like overthrowing Heaven, or the complete wrongness of stuck-up, poncy angels on every philosophical point ever). Of course, Hell had some downright evil bastards kicking about, but at least everyone knew what to expect from them. Crowley once made Beelzebub a birthday cake out of old office calendars topped with flaming salamanders and sang “For They’re a Jolly Good Fellow” while wearing a silly hat, just because he “thought it’d be fun.” Crowley didn’t _get it_.

When Hell got wind of the Garden business and realized they needed a demon on the spot, his was the first name that came up. It was the only name that came up.

He didn’t mind the gig. It was nice to get out of Hell for a bit. Not because of the lakes of fire and the torture and so on—Hell wasn’t actually like that. The sort of things humans dreamed up and for some reason felt compelled to commit to canvas or write about in gory detail made Crowley feel a little queasy, to tell the truth. The whole horror of Hell was that it wasn’t Heaven. You spent your existence enveloped in God’s love, certain of your place in the universe and of the goodness of all things, never alone, never unhappy—until, suddenly, it was all ripped away from you, and your certainty and your love for all creation was replaced by a howling emptiness. _That_ was torture.

Not all that different from being human, after the Fall.

He went up to Earth in the form of a snake, which was fun in a slithery, wriggly sort of way. Beelzebub had dubbed him Crawly, and that seemed fitting enough. Of course, he wasn’t a _real_ snake: he was an eternal cosmic being who looked more or less like a snake, as long as you ignored the otherworldly bits—the wings and so on—but those were only visible if you squinted into the more obscure dimensions, so most people tended not to notice.

His brief was to “make some trouble,” but he wasn’t thinking of his orders when he came up with history’s most famous fuckup. He was thinking of how stupid it was to follow the rules when you didn’t even know _why_. What was so terrible about knowing the difference between good and evil? Crawly liked knowing things. What was the point of existence if not to learn today something you hadn’t known yesterday? He felt sorry for the two humans. Sure, they were happy and comfortable, and they clearly didn’t mind spending all their time eating and sleeping and lying about and having sex, but what was the point of it all, if the answer to every question was “God’s love”? Wouldn’t they rather figure out some things for themselves? That was what he asked Eve, anyway, and she saw his point.

Later, everyone called it the Temptation, even Crowley, but at the time he’d thought of it more as Helpful Assistance. How to Make Your Life More Interesting in One Easy Step.

It had worked, too.

He’d known there was an angel in the Garden. He’d seen them swanning about the place with their flaming sword, blessing Adam and Eve and all the animals and generally spreading light and goodness and all that jazz. Crawly had kept his distance, because everybody knew angels were insufferable, but after God’s pet project had buggered off through the gates of Her holy terrarium, he was conscious that he’d just made the angel’s job a lot harder. So he slithered up to the top of the wall to introduce himself and—well, not apologize, obviously, but perhaps explain a little.

To his surprise, the angel was too busy fretting to think of taking offence. It turned out they’d actually _given the humans their flaming sword_—a holy weapon, the manifestation of God’s wagging finger—because, and this was the best bit, they’d _felt sorry for them_.

It was possible, he thought, that this angel was not entirely insufferable.

He decided to keep an eye on them (Aziraphale was his name, it turned out), to preemptively stop any thwarting, of course. It wasn’t difficult to keep track of the angel, as he trailed an aura of—frankly excessive—love after himself everywhere he went, like a particularly holy fart.

When he saw Aziraphale puttering around in a human body, of all things, Crawly began to rethink his serpentine form. There had to be some strategic advantage to a human shape, or why had the angel got one? And anyway, Crawly was sick of having a crick in his neck from looking up all the time.

He took the de-escalator down to Hell to request a human body, hunting down (sometimes literally) the appropriate forms, submitting them in triplicate, and waiting the usual endless processing period. Eventually, Beelzebub sent for him.

“Budget’s tight this decade,” they said. (They always said this.) “You’ll have to make do with the body you’ve got.”

Crawly smoothed a not-quite-a-feather on one of his ultradimensional wings. “You know, Council were very pleased with my work in the Garden. Said it was a real game-changer.”

The Lord of the Flies gave him a sulky glare. Success didn’t make you popular in Hell any more than failure did. An apathetic mediocrity was what most demons aimed for. Beelzebub shoved the forms into an overflowing filing cabinet and muttered grudgingly, “Take it to the boffins in R&D and see what they can do with it.”

So Crawly hauled his snake body to the lab and explained what he wanted. The demon in charge sucked her teeth and said, “Human, eh? I suppose there’s a first for everything.” There followed the usual delays, plus a few extra as punishment for making them go to the trouble, but eventually the new body was ready and Crawly was able to try it on.

He looked down at himself and all his squishy, knobby human bits. “Why’s it so pale?”

“Pigment is extra,” said the lab head, whose own colour was a rich, dark brown.

Her chief assistant piped up: “Got you the red hair you wanted, though.”

That they had. Crawly had never seen hair so close to the literal definition of the colour. But then, humans were often dying their hair with all sorts of plant juices and whatnot, so that would be all right. He walked over to the nearest mirror and, wiping off the streaks of filth, got a good look at his face.

“My eyes! Fucking hell, what’ve you done to them?”

“Eh? Nothing,” said the lab head. “We just repurposed the ones you had already. No need to go making new ones.”

Her assistant added, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“Well, I’m hardly going to blend in like this, am I?”

“Don’t see why not.” The lab head folded her arms. “You want us to have another go?”

The correct answer to this question was clear in her posture. “No! No, don’t bother. I can work with it.”

Back up on Earth, he discovered a small snakelike mark over the hinge of his right jaw—his old body’s assertion of its original shape. He liked it, he decided. The eyes, too. Blending in was overrated.

Aziraphale, of course, recognized him at once. They even ended up sharing some wine later, but afterwards the angel seemed to cool towards him. _He probably feels guilty for enjoying himself_, thought Crawly. _Angels!_ Well, Crawly didn't need him. He decided to ignore Aziraphale for the rest of their Earthly posting—leave him to his special relationship with Her Ineffableness, he thought snidely. But one day in Babylon he caught a familiar whiff of anxious holiness, and without quite meaning to, he found himself gravitating towards it.

He found Aziraphale in the city’s hanging gardens, admiring some vibrantly pink blossoms cascading down a series of trellises. The angel started when he noticed Crawly looming over his shoulder. “Oh! H-hello.”

“Why so skittish, angel? Is it what I said about the boat? Well, it _was_ a stupid plan. I mean, two of each? Did they know nothing of animal husbandry? But it was more than a thousand years ago, so let’s let bygones be bygones, eh?”

“It’s not that,” said Aziraphale, peering nervously behind a swinging veil of greenery. He seemed to struggle with his conscience for a moment, then blurted out, “It’s Upstairs! They know you’re here, Crawly. They sent me a note. Someone must have recognized you.”

“Huh.” That was unwelcome news. “I wonder if a demon leaked information to your side.”

“Oh, surely not!” gasped the angel.

“_You_ lot are the honest ones, not us.”

“Well, an angel might have simply noticed you about. After all, _I_ can tell you’re a demon.”

“Can you?” said Crawly, surprised.

“Well, yes! You’ve got all that…” His flapping hands indicated the demon’s general aura. “Oh, you know. The wings and the tail and whatnot. They’re perfectly obvious if one knows where to look.”

Crawly squinted into the folded-up dimensions around him and caught a glimpse of spreading black feathers. “Oh, yeah. Didn’t realize I was doing that.” He didn’t usually bother keeping track of where his being overflowed his human body—unless of course it came within a hair’s breadth of the angel’s being, in which case he felt like ants were walking up the inside of his skin.

Aziraphale pursed his lips disapprovingly. “Not terribly discreet.”

“Well, you’re doing it too!” He could see great sweeps of white, many times over, and hundreds of limpid eyes blinking thoughtfully, and he could feel an ethereal wind against his face, though not a hair stirred on his head.

“Am I? Oh, dear. I suppose I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Hang on.” Crawly cracked his neck, twice, then carefully folded up his ultradimensional being and tucked it within the confines of his human body. It was a bit of a squeeze, and it took some concentration, but he did it. “There.”

“That was very well done, Crawly! Now I shall try it.”

In a few minutes, they seemed, to any occult or ethereal observer, to be two ordinary humans standing side by side in a hanging garden.

“All right?” said Crawly. “Can we go have a drink now?”

Aziraphale hesitated. “They do still know what your human body looks like, I _think_.”

“Bet they don’t. Bet they can’t even tell ’em apart. Anyway, you can always say _you_ didn’t know. That you thought I was just an ordinary human.”

The angel’s face brightened in that spectacular way it was wont to, and he said, “Why, yes, you’re right! That’s all right, then. Where shall we go? I’ve heard of a place that does a lovely kibbeh.”

This time Crawly showed him the trick for sobering up _before_ the hangover set in, so they were still on good terms when he ducked out of the little tavern just before dawn. He let his wings unfurl extradimensionally as he sauntered down the narrow street, inwardly shaking his head at the angel’s paranoia. Well, if it kept him happy… 

Wrapped up in his thoughts, he nearly tripped over a large toad crouched in the middle of the cobblestones. “Watch it, Crawly!” it croaked.

He could see, twisted through the dimensions around it, a malevolent darkness that roiled and pulsed in a familiar sort of way. “Hastur?”

“We’re here to check up on you, make sure you’re not wasting Hell’s resources up here.” _We_ seemed to refer to both Hastur and a chameleon clinging to the stones of a nearby wall, whom Crawly recognized as Ligur.

“So you’ve got yourselves a couple of bodies!” he said, as his earthly heart gradually slowed down to its usual pace. “I see we’re keeping within the reptile theme.”

“Not Beelzebub,” said Ligur, flicking out his long tongue. Hastur burped, or possibly grunted.

“No? What’s old Beezle, then?”

“Cloud of flies,” said Ligur with grudging admiration.

Crawly whistled, impressed. “That’s very avant-garde.”

“Stop chattering!” croaked Hastur. “You’re to give us an account of your time up here. How’ve you been contributing to the might of Hell?”

“Ah, well, let’s see,” said Crawly, leaning insouciantly against a half-wall. “Cursings, temptations—as ordered—nudging people in the general direction of nastiness. You know.” The toad looked unimpressed. “Oh! This is a good one: I’ve started an import business here in Mesopotamia. Copper ingots.”

“So?”

“So I’m ripping everyone off, right, left, and centre! Every part of the job there is, I’m doing as badly as possible—missing deliveries, inferior merchandise, really terrible customer service. People are going _mental_. You should see the complaints! I’ve got some saved at home I can show you if you like.”

The demons looked as confused as a toad and a chameleon can look.

“Listen,” explained Crawly with exaggerated patience, “every person who I make livid with frustration turns around and takes it out on the people around them, right? And those people do the same, and so on, and so on. It’s a, what-d’you-call-it, ripple effect. I bet I’ve driven hundreds of humans—thousands!—that much closer to Hell.”

“I see…,” said Hastur slowly, though it was clear he didn’t. “I suppose that’ll do for now. But we’ll be back, and next time I expect to hear of souls delivered directly to Our Side!”

Crawly thrust his hands into his belt and rocked back on his sandalled heels. “Oh, you’re coming back? Really? Only, I was thinking, I could just start sending regular reports, rather than you two coming up here. As a more efficient allocation of resources, I mean. Less wasteful, and all that.”

The demons exchanged a glance—meaning Hastur tilted the top of his head one way and Ligur swivelled one of his eyes the other—but couldn’t pinpoint a flaw in this reasoning.

Crawly added, “Save you a lot of bother. I mean, those bodies are suited for a tropical climate, am I right? This is all desert round here. Your skin must feel terribly dry.”

Hastur puffed up his throat and belched out, “Fine! But make sure those reports come in regularly, you hear?”

“Oh, absolutely!” said Crawly, anticipating a future of prolific and inventive memo-writing. “You can count on me!”

***

Aziraphale cautiously resumed what he liked to think of as his “little chats” with the demon, once they’d both got the hang of keeping themselves contained within their earthly bodies. He was fairly confident that any observers from Upstairs assumed Crawly—or rather, Crowley, as he preferred to be called now—was just another human. Of course, She must know, since nothing was hidden from Her, but he sort of hoped that She wouldn’t notice, or wouldn’t be so very angry if She did. Where was the harm, really? True, he wasn’t smiting Crowley (he didn’t want to smite Crowley; it would have distressed him greatly to do so), but neither was he committing any sins. In fact, whatever time Crowley spent with Aziraphale was time he wasn’t out tempting and spreading evil, so really, it was all to the good. Aziraphale had no interest in fighting. There had been quite enough of that already, in his opinion.

They bumped into each other surprisingly often while going about their duties, and more often than not ended up having a meal and a few (or more) drinks together. Each tried to subtly sway the other to his side. Aziraphale poured out love over all Her creation, even, cautiously, over Crowley, who after all, had once been Hers. He liked to think he might be influencing the demon for good. He even toyed sometimes with the fantasy of saving Crowley’s soul—redeeming him, if such a thing were possible. But then he realized that was indulging in the sin of pride; saving Crowley was something only She could do.

For his part, the demon simply asked questions—casually, as one would inquire about a menu—and each of these questions wormed its way into Aziraphale’s brain and sowed seeds of doubt. He knew the proper answers, of course, but they always sounded a bit thin when he told them to Crowley, not like the unerring principles they were in his head. But then, that was what demons did, wasn’t it? So he pushed the questions aside and forgave Crowley, and patted himself on the back for being so kind.

It was in what would later be called the Dark Ages, in the damp and uncivilized West, that Crowley first suggested the Arrangement. They’d both been encased in armour like a pair of lobsters, and it had all been very uncomfortable. “Absolutely not!” said Aziraphale, because what Crowley was suggesting was treason. The demon acted as though it was just a way to slack off work, the sort of minor bureaucratic laziness that everyone indulged in here and there when one was tired and hadn’t had a coffee and it was just easier to let things slide a bit.

That, Aziraphale realized as he clanked back to his horse, was what made Crowley so dangerous. He would make these shocking suggestions that sounded almost reasonable, until you thought about them and realized how much trouble you’d both get into if you were caught. The angel had become so used to Crowley, to thinking of him as a colleague, possibly even a friend, that he’d forgotten how wrong this all was. Consorting with demons—it was one of the worst crimes in the book! What had he been thinking? No, best to keep clear of him from now on.

Aziraphale nursed this flame of righteousness for about a decade or so, and then he got lonely. Of course, one was never lonely with God in one's life, but even Aziraphale had to admit She wasn’t much for conversation these days. In fact, She hadn’t spoken to him directly since the Garden, when She’d asked somewhat pointedly after the flaming sword. Rather awkward. She wasn’t angry with him for that, was She? Surely he would have known. It wasn’t fair, really, to leave him guessing about the reasons for Her distance. Crowley would say God was being passive-aggressive, which was a terrible thing to say and not at all true. He never listened to Crowley. But thinking of him made Aziraphale feel rather bereft, so when they crossed paths in Constantinople the first thing he said was, “My dear Crowley, is that you? Do come and have some tea and marzipan with me!”

Crowley, to his credit, never seemed to hold a grudge. No matter how Aziraphale huffed and scolded, Crowley just watched him sardonically and then carried on as before. It was maddening. But also, in an odd way, reassuring. Once again the demon proposed the Arrangement, using different words this time: “Oh, do you have business in Ethiopia too? If you like, I could take care of it. No use us both going.” Aziraphale refused, naturally, and the next time too, but he couldn’t deny there was a certain logic to it. They were like two people in the same boat, each rowing in the opposite direction. Why not ship their oars and simply enjoy the view?

By the next century, he’d agreed to Crowley’s proposal, which left him with more time to help out with the construction of some quite lovely cathedrals and to inspire a goodish amount of music. He spent most of the twelfth century as a nun, under an abbess named Hildegard, a time he always looked back on fondly.

The down side of the Arrangement was the constant fear of being found out. He filed his reports assiduously, never leaving the slightest discrepancy that might lead Upstairs to check up on him. He made sure always to meet with Crowley in crowds, where they were less likely to be noticed. (London was good for this, as it was filling up rapidly and boisterously, barring the occasional clean sweep made by the black plague.) He fretted for weeks when, in the eighteenth century, he received a note from Gabriel, reeking of disapproval, in which he was reprimanded for too many “frivolous miracles.” (Aziraphale strongly disagreed with Heaven’s definition of _frivolous_, which didn’t include things like un-burning food or restoring favourite clothes or resurrecting kittens.)

He meant to keep away from Crowley for a bit, but then he had an unfortunately timed craving for crepes and somehow or other ended up in the Bastille. (If he held off on teleporting himself out on the chance that Crowley might appear to rescue him, well, that was neither here nor there.) Upon hearing Crowley’s voice, he felt a positive _rush_ of pleasure, which he tried to hide behind disapproval of the demon’s Revolutionary ensemble. He wasn’t sure he was successful, but it hardly mattered, because Crowley undid his chains and agreed to go to lunch with him, and the crepes were as good as he’d hoped. (So was the company.)

Before his poorly timed trip across the Channel (or perfectly timed, depending on your perspective), Aziraphale had been on the brink of establishing a bookshop. This venture, it turned out, was one of the best decisions he’d ever made. He loved everything to do with running the shop—acquiring the books, researching titles, repairing damaged volumes, even doing the accounts. Everything except the customers.

It had seemed such a perfect fit: he loved people and he loved books—what could be better than providing the latter to the former? But after many decades of people trying to haggle with him over his carefully thought-out prices, scolding him for not carrying _A Complete History of Seventeenth-Century Magnifying Glasses_ (out of print since 1886), becoming huffy when he declined to buy their sets of out-of-date encyclopedias, asking if his books were arranged alphabetically by title (_why?_), coming in only to eat their lunch or use the toilet, using priceless rare editions as coasters for their half-full coffee cups, leaving their small offspring unsupervised in the children’s section while they ran errands elsewhere, informing him (at some length) of the imminent death of print as a medium, and insisting they could get the same book cheaper at a location he first assumed was in South America but turned out to be somewhere in that nebulous space called “the Internet,” he realized there was an inverse relationship between the number of customers he dealt with in a day and his peace of mind.

Thus he did his best to discourage the public, with arbitrary opening hours, an organization system only he could navigate, and a refusal to sell any but the most common editions. Fortunately, he’d long ago purchased the property outright and what maintenance costs he had were paid out of several very long term savings accounts, so he didn’t need a clientele to keep the shop running (many a bookseller’s dream). By the twenty-first century, the place had become such a neighbourhood fixture—surviving the Blitz, the Great Smog, and the property developers—that most people had come to accepted its owner’s eccentricities.

The bookshop became one of two constants in his eternal life, the second being Crowley. The demon had a way of popping up whenever Aziraphale was in a tight spot. “How do you always know?” he’d asked him, after that bit of kerfuffle with those unpleasant Nazis. Crowley shrugged and said, “I can smell it.” Which wasn’t really an answer, but Aziraphale had been too grateful to question it further. They’d ridden side by side in Crowley’s hellish vehicle, through a London darkened by the blackout, and Aziraphale had thought about love. 

Heaven’s love was supposed to be unselfish and unbiased, but what Aziraphale felt for Crowley, he finally acknowledged to himself, was neither. He wanted Crowley for himself, wanted Crowley to save him before anyone else, and to never lose that keen, sardonic interest he showed whenever Aziraphale spoke, even if the angel was being a touch pompous or long-winded (which, he was self-aware enough to realize, was occasionally the case). Nor did Aziraphale care equally for all God’s creatures; to his shame, he would put Crowley’s safety above that of any number of humans.

Which is why it was so very annoying that Crowley kept asking him for holy water. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Downstairs would probably punish Crowley horribly if they ever found out about their friendship, now he was looking for the ability to put an end to his own existence! And what was Aziraphale supposed to do then, in a universe without Crowley? It didn’t bear thinking of. Unfortunately, Crowley wouldn’t let it go, so in the end Aziraphale capitulated. He handed over the thermos with his heart in his throat—a human expression he only then understood. Earthly love, he saw, came inextricably entwined with the fear of losing that which you loved. It was much less comfortable than the celestial variety.

After that night he tried to retreat, hoping the feeling would fade. It seemed to—until the next time Crowley dropped by the bookshop, when Aziraphale’s fondness came thundering back in spite of the dreadful moustache and unspeakable haircut Crowley was sporting that decade. What was an angel to do? A small part of him still cherished the fantasy of redeeming Crowley and bringing him back to Her fold. Wasn’t forgiveness one of Her best-known qualities? Surely She could see the good in the demon. All right, yes, he was a bit…mischievous, but at heart he was no worse than some angels Aziraphale could name. And then the two of them could be together as angels were, and it would all be rather lovely. 

And then, of course, the world began to end.

***

Hastur and Ligur still had their earthly bodies when Crowley met up with them in the wilds of Oxfordshire, blissfully unaware that he was about to be saddled with the infant Antichrist. The two demons were perched atop human simulacra—solid projections that allowed them to blend in with humans, in theory, at least. Hastur’s toad body was concealed under a wig, but the effect was rather less human than more, and Ligur didn’t bother hiding his chameleon form at all. It hardly mattered: their demonic essences hung about them in a cloud so thick that most humans instinctively gave them a wide berth, even if they didn’t know why. 

Crowley had expected the meeting to be a drag; he hadn’t realized it would be a bummer of world-ending proportions. After divesting himself of the Antichrist as quickly as possible, he immediately rang Aziraphale. The angel was quite clever, in his own way; together they could surely come up with a way to avert the End Times. No one else was going to do it.

He hadn’t reckoned on the angel’s blind, unshakeable faith in Her Divine Plan. The naiveté which he had occasionally found charming (not that he would ever admit as much) now made him want to grab Aziraphale by the lapels of his outdated coat and shake him until some common sense fell out. Since this was not an option, he used all the persuasiveness at his command, which, he knew, was considerable. He’d had a lot of practice talking Aziraphale round over the centuries. The Arrangement? All his idea. Give him enough time, Crowley felt, and he could talk anyone round to anything.

To remind Aziraphale of the many things he loved about Earth, Crowley bought him a sumptuous lunch and plied him with glass after glass of his own Châteauneuf-du-Pape. He knew the angel was starting to cave when his eyebrows scrunched up in drunken dismay, making him look like a toddler whose lolly had been stolen by the cat. But despite his doubt, Aziraphale fretted about disobeying orders, so Crowley delivered the clincher: Who was to say thwarting him, and thus stopping Armageddon, wasn’t part of the Divine Plan? 

That did it. He watched Aziraphale’s face melt with relief as he accepted the idea. The angel held out a hand and they shook on it, and Crowley leaned back in his chair and smiled. Aziraphale was on his side and they had a plan and all was right with the world, or would be. 

He could still feel the slight impression of the angel’s palm in his as he drove back to his luxury condo. They hadn’t often touched over the centuries. Of course, there was no _existential_ danger in it, now; they both kept well within the bounds of their respective bodies out of long habit, though Home Office had taken note of their appearances long ago. All the same, there was a slight sense of danger in proximity. Like looking over the parapet at Niagara Falls. You couldn’t help but _think_ of stepping off the edge, though of course you didn’t _do_ it.

Both Hell and Heaven would have been surprised to see how smoothly the two of them worked together over the next decade or so, shepherding Warlock through his childhood. Crowley took on a female role, though he decided not to change his body this time, simply because he couldn’t be arsed. For some reason Aziraphale felt the need to don a clownishly rustic face and a ludicrous accent. Crowley was glad when they were able to shed their personas and the angel sounded like his old prissy self again. Besides, while skirts were fun, hose and heels were a bit of a nuisance once the thrill wore off.

Oh, yes, he reflected later, they made quite a team: a right pair of idiots who didn’t realize they’d been raising the wrong child this whole time. By the time it dawned on them, Armageddon was well underway.

As the man said, you’ve gotta know when to fold ’em. Crowley decided to leave the moment he realized Hell was on his tail. He would collect his angel and head for the stars. No one could say they hadn’t tried. But Aziraphale, that bloody stupid fluff-headed _idiot_, dug in his heels and insisted Heaven would listen to reason, though it never had before and why it would start now Crowley couldn’t imagine. If that was the way Aziraphale wanted it, he thought, then fine! “I’m getting my stuff and I’m leaving!” he shouted. “And when I’m off in the stars, I won’t even _think_ about you!”

But then, somehow, he lost all motivation to leave. Even in that dark time when he thought his angel was gone for good, all he wanted to do was curl up into a ball and weep. Then Aziraphale was there, like a miracle, and he needed Crowley, and that was all Crowley needed to know.

He would have liked to be able to say they were instrumental in averting the Apocalypse and saving Earth, but in truth the credit belonged to Adam. At best the two of them had been moral support. On the other hand, he thought, sitting at a bus stop in Oxfordshire in the middle of the night, he’d take what he could get. Whether it was ineffable Divinity (unlikely) or an astonishing stroke of good luck (even more unlikely), the Earth was intact and they were both alive.

Alive—but for how long?

***

Even as the world was ending, Aziraphale had been sure everything would be all right if he could just make Heaven understand. He felt certain Earth’s destruction was not what She wanted, despite what had been written down. But the other angels were smugly convinced of the inevitability of the Great War and seemed impervious to his gentle suggestions to the contrary.

Crowley was all for leaving, but Aziraphale balked at the idea. Angels didn't run away. In the romantic daydreams he occasionally indulged in, Crowley always came over to his side, the side of Good. It wasn’t supposed to be the other way around.

“You were an angel once,” he said desperately.

“That was a _long_ time ago,” said Crowley. 

He’d said some other things too: “I won’t ever be forgiven. Not ever. Unforgivable, that’s what I am.” The words struck Aziraphale to his core, and when Crowley suggested running off together, he said some unfortunate things in reply, because if reconciling Crowley with Heaven was impossible, then they were soon to be on opposite sides of the greatest battle the world had ever known.

Crowley stomped off, and Aziraphale felt devastated, even though he knew he’d done nothing wrong.

“There doesn’t have to be a war!” he said to Gabriel the next day.

The archangel was pretending to jog. His body was a simulacrum, so obviously it didn’t need exercise in the ordinary sense, but he was doing the equivalent of a spiritual workout, honing his intentions for the upcoming conflict. Around him, his essence was becoming as hard and sharp as crystal.

“Lose the gut,” he told Aziraphale, looking pointedly at his human body, which would be useless in a multidimensional war.

As the archangel pretend-jogged off, Aziraphale looked down at his soft flesh and felt a pang. He’d had this body for six thousand years, and it was a like a dear friend. He wasn’t sure he would be the same person without it.

No, Gabriel was wrong! He felt sure of it. Aziraphale decided he would go to the top. He would petition God and make Her talk to him at last!

As usual, She did not deign to answer. _Why not?_ he railed, standing on the bare floorboards of the bookshop. Surely the world had never needed Her more! _He_ had never needed Her more!

What if She was never going to answer him again?

What if he had to decide what to do for himself?

For the first time, he had an inkling of what Crowley had been trying to tell him.

Crowley! He rushed to the phone and dialled, but the demon was busy. Typical! At least he was still on Earth. Crowley would help him. True, Aziraphale had been, well, a bit insufferable, to be honest, but after six thousand years, it would take more than a little spat to drive Crowley away completely, of that Aziraphale was sure.

Things got rather complicated after that, what with the discorporation and the possession of Madame Tracy, and finally meeting Adam, who really wasn't so bad after all. Crowley, clever demon that he was, gave Aziraphale the nudge he needed to tell Gabriel and Beelzebub what he was now more convinced of than ever: God was ineffable, so neither angel nor demon could ever really know Her plan with certainty.

And the world had _not_ ended, and he and Crowley had taken a bus back to London. “We’re on our own side,” Crowley had told him gently, but it took a while to sink in. It was a relief to be shot of Gabriel and the others, but he hadn’t truly thought of himself as Not of Heaven until this moment. He was no longer part of the Heavenly host. He was on the side of humans, and Earth, and Crowley. Who offered him a place to stay, because the bookshop (his beloved bookshop!) was gone.

Crowley’s apartment was like a modern art gallery, all sharp angles and hard surfaces—though the surprisingly verdant plants were a nice touch. Aziraphale sat gingerly on a dark leather-and-chrome sofa while the demon fetched them a bottle of Lagavulin. “Might as well drink it while we can.”

“Do you think they’ll come after us soon?” said Aziraphale nervously, taking his glass of single malt.

“Of course they will.” Crowley slouched down next to him on the sofa, stretching out his legs and discarding his sunglasses on a sharp-edged side table. “They’re not best pleased about what I did to Ligur.” They’d both pointedly ignored the scorch marks on the floor of the other room.

“What— what do you think they’ll do?”

“Dunk me in holy water, I expect. Let the punishment fit the crime.”

Aziraphale turned to him in alarm. “Oh, surely not!” He sank back against the unyielding sofa, feeling glum. “Oh dear. I suppose it’ll be infernal flames for me.” It was ironic, in a way, because holy water wouldn’t hurt him, and Crowley was probably perfectly comfortable toasting himself in hellfire.

The words of Agnes’s prophecy drifted through his mind. He sat up straight and seized the demon’s sleeve, nearly slopping Scotch over the rim of his glass. “Crowley! What if we swapped places?”

“You what?”

“If I went Downstairs in your place and you went Upstairs in mine—”

“And how do you plan to do that?”

“They’ll only be seeing our human bodies!” To show what he meant, Aziraphale concentrated on his earthly shell, nudging its cells into a new configuration. One that was, let’s see, tall and thin, with a prominent nose…

Crowley nearly choked on his drink. “Fucking hell, is that supposed to be me?”

“Is this not right?” said Aziraphale, peering down at his elongated limbs.

“You look like a cross between Slenderman and Mr. Punch!”

“Who is—? Never mind.” He sighed fretfully, which sounded odd coming from a Crowley-like body. “The trouble is, I only know what you look like from the outside, not what it feels like inside your body. Perhaps if…”

“Hang on, hang on,” said Crowley, waving a finger. “I know what you’re thinking. But just because you were able to hop into Madame Tracy doesn’t mean you can do it with _me_. Angel and demon, remember? Oil and water. Good and evil. Et cetera, et cetera.”

“I’m not so sure we really _are_ all that different, underneath,” mused Aziraphale.

Crowley snorted.

“Well, have you got any better ideas? I’d rather be annihilated here with you than executed in Heaven watching Gabriel’s smug face.”

“Point taken.” Crowley licked his lips. “All right,” he said, holding out his hand. “And if it doesn’t work, well, it’s been nice knowing you.”

“And you, my dear.” Aziraphale reached out hesitantly. Their fingers touched.

At first, the contact was only physical, but then a tiny thread of Crowley’s being twined into his. A prickling sensation ran across Aziraphale’s knuckles and up his arm. It almost burned—not like a fire, but like something numb coming back to life. “Crowley…” he said, “are you…?”

The demon was frowning intently. “Yeah. It’s like…cold?” More of him was slithering into Aziraphale, or Aziraphale was winding into Crowley—he couldn’t tell. Crowley raised his gaze to Aziraphale’s. His hand shook. “Hold on.”

“I am holding on! I’m—” Aziraphale’s whole body felt as though it was shaking itself apart. His only anchor was Crowley’s hand, which he was clenching for dear life. “Don’t let go!” he shouted, staring into Crowley’s wide yellow eyes.

Moments—or hours—passed, and Aziraphale found he was able to take a deep breath. And then another. The pain was clearing like a fog, slowly thinning out and then, finally, wisping away. He could see Crowley in front of him, but he could also see himself, looking pale and rather unattractively sweaty. His legs were stretched out—no, they were bent, pressed together at the knees…

“Oh dear. Which of us am I?”

“You’re in both of us at once,” said Crowley. As he spoke, the words came out of both their mouths. “We need to get ourselves sorted out.”

“Oh. Er…how?”

“Try to make your way to my body and I’ll concentrate on yours.” Aziraphale felt a surge of some emotion at those words—embarrassment? self-consciousness?—as well as a sort of pleasant ache that seemed to be attached to his body, or rather, Crowley’s body. That had been Crowley’s reaction, he realized. 

_Stop snooping, angel, and focus!_

_Terribly sorry, I didn’t mean— Goodness, you_ are _tall, aren’t you?_ He was looking down at himself from a new vantage point. Even sitting, he could see the top of his own fair curls. And when Crowley met his eyes, it was from under Aziraphale’s own eyelashes—rather coquettishly.

_Crowley, I’ve never looked at you like that!_

_Angel, you_ always _look at me like this._

Memories slipped through him, images of his own face glancing up or sideways, head tilted just a little, and oh dear, _coquettish_ was just the word for it. He had never realized—and in Paris that time—oh, Lord. He could feel Crowley’s reaction to the memory: a profound fondness, bless him, and that fluttering ache again, accompanied by the sight of his own calves and ankles in petal-pink stockings. _Is that lust?_

_Shut up, angel! You’re just as bad. I’ve never felt anything so soppy in my life. What was all that “I don’t even like you” business? You’re utterly smitten!_

_Oh. Well, yes, I suppose I am._ There was no point denying it now, to himself or to Crowley. _I love you very much, my dear. Is that all right?_

Aziraphale’s corporation sputtered. “Oh, ah, y-you— that’s— well, ah…right. That’s fine.” It cleared its throat and said, “Have you got what you need?” The voice was lower than Aziraphale’s usual register.

“Yes, I think so.” They withdrew from each other, with some awkwardness and bumping of metaphysical knees and elbows, until each was in their own body again.

“Now try it,” said Crowley, and Aziraphale once more rearranged his body into a Crowley shape, this time drawing on his memory of how the demon felt from the inside.

“Much better,” said Crowley approvingly. “But you’re too stiff, angel. You need to relax.”

Crowley tried next, and made a passable Aziraphale. They spent the rest of the night practising, refining their shapes, expressions, and movements until they were both confident—or at least hopeful—they could fool Heaven and Hell.

Morning came far too soon. They sat on the sofa, shoulder to shoulder, knowing it was time to go. “If it doesn’t work—” began Crowley.

“It _will_ work.”

“Angel, I… You know I feel the same, yeah?”

“Yes, my dear, I know.”

***

It worked.

The low point, for Crowley, was watching his angel get hit over the head by that bastard Hastur while he, Crowley, was bound and gagged and powerless to help. By the time he was face-to-face with Gabriel, he was angry enough to spit tacks. At least demons were up front about their nastiness; the archangel hid his behind a handsome face and a smarmy smile. Crowley couldn’t resist spewing some hellfire at him—just enough to singe. Wanker.

In the park a short time later, he gave thanks to Someone Unspecified when he saw himself sitting on their bench in what was unmistakably Aziraphale’s prim posture. “How’d it go, angel?” he said, playing it cool.

“There you are!” said Aziraphale, his relief evident on Crowley’s face. “Everything went according to plan.”

Crowley took his usual place next to Aziraphale. “Do you think they’ll leave us alone now?”

“At a guess, they’ll pretend it never happened,” said the angel. “Right. Anyone looking?”

Since neither side was watching, they rearranged their bodies into their usual configurations, holding hands as they did it—to facilitate the process (or so Crowley was prepared to swear). The sight of his angel’s face hit him with a wave of relief. For his part, Aziraphale seemed as though a weight had been taken off his shoulders. He laughed openly, burbling about rubber ducks and towels. Crowley couldn’t suppress his answering laugh, though it was decidedly off-brand for him. He didn’t care.

He invited Aziraphale to lunch at the Ritz, where they shared a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and Aziraphale ate a luxurious meal, smiling and chattering the whole time. Crowley watched him with his mouth curling up at the corners. He’d never seen the angel look so relaxed. Still talking, Aziraphale placed his hand on the table, almost as if he were reaching for Crowley. But it couldn’t be intentional. Their boundaries had been strictly delineated years ago (“You go too fast for me”), and Crowley wasn’t about to violate them now.

As usual, he paid the bill out of a bank CEO’s personal account in the Cayman Islands, adding a big tip on principle. To Aziraphale he said, “Meet you back at the bookshop later?” The Bentley was calling to him.

“Oh, yes!” said Aziraphale, his eyes lighting up. “I can’t wait to see what Adam’s done with the place.”

The drive did Crowley good, after he’d finessed the city traffic and got out onto the country roads. (This use of his demonic power was still minor enough to qualify as lying low, he decided; no one could be expected to tolerate London traffic if they had an alternative.) With one elbow out the window and Freddy Mercury belting an ode to fat bottoms, he felt his jumpiness ease. The back of his neck had been prickling all day, convinced he was about to be pounced on at any moment, but now he finally, cautiously, let himself feel safe. He didn’t expect it to last forever—he wasn’t that naive—but maybe they could be together for a while, and he could see that carefree look on Aziraphale’s face more often.

He returned to Soho as dusk was starting to fall. Inside the bookshop, he found the angel knee-deep in volumes, well on his way to returning the place to its former state of chaos. “Oh, you’re back!” said Aziraphale, beaming at him as if they’d been separated for centuries. “Look at this. He’s added a first-edition Jack London. I think he’s fond of adventure stories, bless him.”

“Mm,” said Crowley. “Shall I fetch us a bottle of wine?”

“Oh yes, there’s a dear.”

Aziraphale found some dark chocolate that had survived the Apocalypse intact, and he nibbled on it while they sipped a nice Bordeaux, sitting on a cozy sofa in the midst of the lamplit bookshelves. After a few glasses, Aziraphale relaxed enough to lean back into the cushions, almost brushing Crowley’s arm where it stretched across the back of the sofa. “Crowley,” he said, then stopped.

“Hm?” He’d been thinking about his plants, and whether they’d slacked off while he’d been preoccupied, and what he would tell them in no uncertain terms if that was the case.

Aziraphale’s cheeks were pink. “Can I take off your sunglasses?”

“Course.” He whipped them off himself, automatically; he’d forgot he had them on.

Aziraphale’s face pinked up even more. He stared into Crowley’s eyes, then suddenly looked away. Then peeked at him from under his eyelashes. If it had been anyone else, Crowley would’ve said he was flirting. But this was Aziraphale.

Now Aziraphale was staring at him again, almost nervous.

“Angel?”

In response, he lurched forward and pressed his lips to Crowley’s, bumping their noses. He pulled back at once, blushing furiously, while Crowley sat stunned. “What…why…?”

“Was that not…? That is, I thought you… Oh dear.” He picked up his wineglass and drained it in several gulps.

“Angel. You kissed me.” Crowley pulled himself together. “I don’t mind! I just… I didn’t think that was your sort of thing.”

“Oh. Er, it wasn’t,” said Aziraphale to his wineglass. He risked a sideways glance at Crowley. “Angels…we don’t really do, um, desire. Too likely to lead to sin.”

Crowley thought of crepes and Châteauneuf-du-Pape but kept his mouth shut. But Aziraphale must have guessed his thoughts, because he said, “Yes, I know I’ve sailed a bit close to the wind when it comes to, ah, earthly delights. Sensuousness seems to come naturally to this body—food, wine, bubble baths. The occasional Swedish massage.”

Crowley was instantly and irrationally jealous of whatever strapping Swede had pummelled Aziraphale’s flesh into blissful submission.

“But _sexual_ desire,” he continued, “what humans call a libido, well, that requires an effort.” 

“I understand, angel. You don’t need to—”

“But I have. After being inside you and learning something of how you see me, well, I thought, why not? So I made the effort. While you were out driving.” He looked up through his eyelashes. His hands were clasped on the stem of his empty wineglass, balanced on his pressed-together knees. “I must say, it’s terribly distracting. I’ve always known you were beautiful”—Crowley made a wordless noise of surprise—“but I can’t seem to stop looking at your legs. I mean, those trousers you wear are _very_ tight. And the way you walk, good Lord! And your hands—” He stopped suddenly, his face flaming. “I’m overdoing this, aren’t I? I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, my dear. Just say the word and I’ll stop.”

“No!” blurted Crowley. He pulled Aziraphale forward by the lapels and firmly kissed his lips.

The angel melted into him, hands against his chest. “My dearest,” he said softly when they parted, their breaths mingling.

“Are you sure?”

“Quite, _quite_ sure.”

Crowley kissed him again, opening his lips and moving them gently against Aziraphale’s. He cupped the angel’s jaw in his hand, tilting it, and brushed his tongue against Aziraphale’s upper lip. The angel tasted divine.

With a small, wanting noise, Aziraphale opened his mouth, and Crowley nudged inside. He could do this for years, he thought. Millennia. Their kiss deepened as Aziraphale explored, becoming bolder. His empty wineglass had fallen to the carpet, freeing his hands to burrow into Crowley’s hair, where they tugged and curled, sending jolts of pleasure down to Crowley’s soles.

When they pulled apart, Crowley said breathlessly, “Should’ve known you’d be a natural, you hedonist.”

“Mm,” said Aziraphale. His eyes were dark and heavy-lidded, his cheeks flushed. “Can’t think why I didn’t do this sooner,” he murmured.

“Well, there was the small matter of being under surveillance,” said Crowley dryly. “Not to mention the whole sin thing.” He watched Aziraphale carefully.

“Oh, that.” Aziraphale made a face. “It’s all a bit silly, isn’t it? As though there’s something immoral about pleasure. Doesn’t make sense.” His eyes dropped to Crowley’s mouth, and then they were kissing again. 

Crowley was not inexperienced when it came to sex. For years it had been part of his arsenal in tempting humans to compromise their souls. But after a few centuries he began to feel that the physical thrill wasn’t worth all the angst. If he disliked the human—well, he tried to avoid those. If he liked them, it was worse. They always seemed to take it so hard when he left them, but it was that or watch them age and die. Then there was all the guilt. So many humans were awash in the stuff, especially if they thought they were sinning, which was usually the case. Frankly, it was tedious. In the end he realized there were easier ways to do his job, and he stopped having sex for the most part and settled for the occasional wank instead. If he sometimes thought of Aziraphale when he did, well, he was a demon, wasn’t he? What else could anyone expect?

Now here he was with the angel actually in his arms, and all he could think was, _Don’t fuck this up, Crowley!_ His hands shook a little as he untied the hopelessly uncool bowtie and undid a few shirt buttons. He kissed the hollow of Aziraphale’s throat, which was soft and warm and, under the cologne, smelled deliciously of his angel. Crowley found himself emitting low, wordless murmurs with each kiss, as vocal as ever Aziraphale had been when devouring a dessert. Not that the angel was quiet now—he was saying _oh my_ and _ah_ and _Crowley_, and other things that weren’t quite words. When Crowley sucked at the tender skin behind his ear, Aziraphale squirmed and breathed out, “Oh God!”

The waistcoat _had_ to go. Crowley scrabbled at it madly, fingers clumsy on the buttons. It took Aziraphale a few dazed seconds to realize what he was doing, but when he did, he said, “Oh, yes, by all means,” and snapped his fingers, whereupon all his buttons slipped out of their holes simultaneously. Crowley parted his shirt, only to find he was wearing an undershirt, of course, because Aziraphale loved to drive him beyond reason. “Angel,” he growled, “_why_ do you wear so many damned clothes?”

“Why do _you_ wear so many clothes?” said Aziraphale plaintively, tugging at his black jacket.

Crowley sat up and began whipping off layers—jacket, waistcoat, t-shirt.

Aziraphale watched him, wide-eyed. When he was done, the angel said rather breathlessly, “Dear boy. May I?” He reached out a hand towards Crowley’s chest.

“Sure,” he said, voice rough. “Knock yourself out, angel.”

Aziraphale’s fingers traced ever so lightly down his sternum, making his chest hair tickle. They slid under his pectorals, and a thumb stroked the side of his areola, just brushing his nipple, which tightened visibly. Crowley bit his lip. The sensation, and the rapt look on Aziraphale’s face, had him very close to emitting some terribly embarrassing noises.

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, as if charmed. His other hand rose, and both thumbs stroked across Crowley’s nipples, firmly now. “Is that nice?”

“_Yes!_” he blurted. “Yes, indeed! It’s—yes. For some people. Some men. Women—if you have breasts, it’s more, ah— But yes.” Great buggering Satan, he was babbling.

A slightly wicked look came into Aziraphale’s eyes. “May I kiss them?” he said, with more innocence than was probably genuine.

“Yuh—uh, if you want to,” squeaked Crowley. _You devious bastard. I love you._

Aziraphale put his mouth on Crowley’s chest and began to kiss and lick, nibble and suck. He played with his nipples until they ached. He smoothed his hands down Crowley’s abdomen. The demon had never regretted his tight trousers so much. Aziraphale’s hand slid down to where his erection was pressing against the fabric and stroked it lightly. “Angel!” Crowley croaked at last, pushing him back gently.

“Mm?” said Aziraphale, looking up at him. His eyes were glazed, his lips cherry red.

_God_, thought Crowley. “Can I—? Angel…”

“Anything, my dear.”

He swallowed and tried to put his desire into words. “I want to…make you feel good. Is that…would that be okay with you?”

Aziraphale’s expression softened into his fondest look, the one that made Crowley want to hide his face with happiness. “Very much, Crowley dearest.”

When he could speak, he said, “Right. First thing, _this_”—he hooked a finger in Aziraphale’s undershirt—“is coming off.”

It was awkward, peeling it off while manoeuvring around on the sofa, and Aziraphale’s hair stuck up comically after it came off. They both giggled like idiots, giddy with nerves and excitement, and Crowley said, “Angel,” and kissed him everywhere he could reach.

Aziraphale was gorgeous—white and voluptuous, lightly furred on his chest, soft the way clouds were supposed to feel but didn’t actually. The angel was, unsurprisingly, quite sensitive. He gasped when Crowley took a nipple into his mouth and groaned when Crowley sucked at it hard while pinching the other in the same rhythm. He wriggled against the sofa cushions, letting out breathy _ah_s and _oh_s, as Crowley worked his slow way down his chest and belly, lingering on his belly button. The beige trousers, parted, revealed white-blond hairs curling slyly above the elastic waist of his boxers. Crowley nuzzled the little hairs, then breathed on the cock swelling rapidly under the cotton. Aziraphale whimpered.

Crowley sat back to remove Aziraphale’s shoes and socks, then wrestled off his trousers and underwear with the angel’s eager help. Aziraphale watched as Crowley slid sinuously out of his own trousers—or tried to. The bloody things were fucking _ridiculous_—why the hell did he wear them? Aziraphale laughed as he helped yank them off and made jokes about skinning eels.

In revenge, Crowley pushed him back into the sofa and dropped to his knees on the carpet. He spread Aziraphale’s legs, settling himself between those heavenly thighs. The angel’s cock was straining upward, the head shining and red as a berry where it peeked through the foreskin. Crowley felt his salivary glands kick in. After a few light strokes with his hand, he grasped the shaft firmly and lowered his mouth.

“_Crowley!_” gasped Aziraphale. His hands clutched at the sofa cushions.

Crowley set a slow rhythm, using his tongue, his lips, and his hand. He made note of what made Aziraphale catch his breath or whine shamelessly. The angel was so enthusiastic—it made Crowley wild. He looked up to see Aziraphale’s head was thrown back against the cushions, a rosy flush running down his throat and chest. “My dear…,” the angel panted. “That feels so good…ah!…so good!”

Crowley tried to keep it slow, to draw things out, but Aziraphale wasn’t so patient. “_Please_,” he begged, writhing and bucking. Every time he thrust into Crowley’s throat, Crowley felt dizzy with pleasure (it helped that he didn’t need to breathe). _Use me_, he wanted to say. _I’ll make you feel better than anyone ever has or ever will_. His own cock was so hard it hurt. It was perfect.

Aziraphale came, limbs tightening, cock pulsing, his mouth caught in a silent _oh_. He bent over Crowley with the force of it, clutching at his shoulders hard enough to bruise. Crowley nearly went off right then. Instead he swallowed and waited to pull off until Aziraphale had collapsed back against the sofa.

“Goodness,” said Aziraphale faintly.

“All right?” asked Crowley, with a smile that even he had to admit was rather smug.

“I feel absolutely _marvellous_.”

Crowley laughed.

“Come,” said Aziraphale, flapping his hand. “Come up here.” Crowley joined him on the sofa, wincing at the discomfort of his still-hard cock. Aziraphale eyed it speculatively and licked his lips. “How shall I take care of that?”

“Actually…” Crowley’d had something in mind since he first saw the angel’s shapely thighs. “Could I…between your thighs?”

“Intercrural? Certainly.”

“How on earth do you know the word for that?”

Aziraphale sniffed. “I read, dear boy. Now, how do you want me?”

Filing the angel’s smutty reading habits away for later, Crowley said, “Lie back, along the sofa.” He summoned a bottle of lube from his apartment (and some wet wipes, while he was at it) and slicked himself up with a groan. This would not take long at all. He stretched himself out over Aziraphale, who was all warm softness and felt like a dream. “Am I too heavy?” he asked, trying to keep his weight on his forearms, tucked on either side of the angel’s ribs.

“Mm, no, this is lovely.” Aziraphale twined his hands in Crowley’s hair and pulled him into a long, deep kiss.

When he couldn’t wait any longer, Crowley pushed his cock between Aziraphale’s sweet thighs. The friction was intense, especially when the angel tightened his muscles. Crowley groaned. His hips found a rhythm, began thrusting aggressively. “_Yes_,” said Aziraphale. He brought his hands down to squeeze Crowley’s arse, urging him on.

His rhythm became frantic. Above the squelching, slapping noises and his own panting breaths, he heard Aziraphale’s murmurs, hot breath tickling his ear: _That’s it, darling. You’re so beautiful_. A few more thrusts—arms trembling, sweat pooling in the small of his back—and he was done for. His orgasm wrenched out of him with a hoarse cry, and he collapsed.

He managed to roll off Aziraphale, mindful of being too heavy, and lay pressed against his side as they caught their breath (the sofa had considerately made itself wide enough to accommodate this). As he came back to himself, he became aware of the mess he’d made between Aziraphale’s thighs. “Gotta clean you up,” he mumbled, heroically resisting the urge to drop off to sleep. At least he’d had the foresight to summon the wipes, as he had no energy for that sort of thing at the moment, and he was relatively sure Aziraphale would be miffed if he used the nearest thing to hand, which was a tartan blanket thrown over the back of the couch—but it was annoying that the package was currently lying on the floor where he’d tossed it, just out of reach.

“No,” said Aziraphale, burrowing into his shoulder. “Stay.”

“Gonna get sticky.”

“Don’t care.”

Eventually, the wipes thought better of their current position and relocated to his hand. Aziraphale allowed him to clean both of them up, and they settled back down more comfortably, with his arms around Aziraphale and their feet intertwined.

Crowley yawned widely. “D’you have a bed somewhere?” Not that he wanted to move at the moment, but he was thinking about next time. Assuming there _was_ a next time, he thought, suddenly unsure of himself.

“No, but I intend to buy one tomorrow,” said Aziraphale, his hand petting Crowley’s arm where it lay across his belly. “I’m beginning to see it was an oversight not to get one. You’ll be welcome to use it whenever you like, of course.” He smiled coyly. “For any little naps you might wish to take.”

Crowley felt his mouth turn up at the corner. “Just for naps?” The angel’s hair was sticking up all over the place, which for some reason made Crowley feel soft inside.

“Well, I suppose we might find more uses for it.” Aziraphale waggled his eyebrows and wiggled his shoulders.

He was ridiculous. “You’re ridiculous, angel,” said Crowley, but it came out sounding like something else.

“So are you, my dear,” said Aziraphale, just as fondly. “Very, very much.”


End file.
